


you can’t take it back

by acid_glue234



Series: it only took three months (four years and three months) [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Sexual Tension, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 20:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acid_glue234/pseuds/acid_glue234
Summary: sawyer doesn't look away, despite the ice in your eyes. “you're a very attractive person," she says, out of nowhere, and you find yourself looking around to make sure no one else heard, but you're the only two standing by the pool table now.





	you can’t take it back

**Author's Note:**

> title #2: When Alex Met Maggie [Part 2]
> 
> (based on and inspired by the dialogue from "When Harry Met Sally")

**february 2017**

 

years go by, three to be exact, and you don't change one bit, because change is for petty thieves, pickpockets, vending machines, not for senior deo agents with over two hundred successful covert operations and undercover missions under her belt. 

you're at the biannual recruitment ceremony, standing next to supergirl and winn as they stuff their faces with cocktail shrimp and garlic bread. you've never had a big appetite, and so you sip on your champagne and watch as all the new recruits shake j'onn and lucy’s hand when they receive their rookie badges and division placement packages.

and then you see her.

maggie sawyer.

she passes you by, and you know she recognizes you, but instead of joining you and supergirl and winn by the appetizers, she lifts her flute of champagne from across the room and then takes a long sip, her eyes on you the entire time.

you can't look away, but then there's a hand on your shoulder, and j'onn is asking for your help in his office. as you trail after him to the elevators, you look around for her, but she's gone.

deo training made her stealth and observant.

you wonder what else she's learned.

//

it seems as though you'll get to know all about sawyer's deo training, up close and personal, as she's assigned to you as one of your new rookie advisees.

you get six of them every year—two groups of three every six months—to help ease in the new recruits through the stressful and oftentimes scary transition process from the rugrat training academy to the big and bad deo.

this session, you're assigned two women and a man. maggie sawyer, 24; kiana jefferson, 26; and paulie j. marsh, 25.

sawyer is the youngest and smallest of them all, but you quickly learn she has no problem keeping up with the physical or intellectual strain of the big leagues. it's going to be rough, you won't lie—not to your team, never to yourself—but you believe they've all got potential, and that's where you come in.

lined up, you slowly pace in front of them. they all stand at attention, unmoving and tall, alert and ready. you pause in your pacing and look them over.

you look sawyer over twice.

she's stronger, toner, harder. there's a maturity to her appearance that wasn't there three years ago, but even still, her eyes are the same.

dark but warm.

inviting.

 _lingering_ , but only whenever your back is turned.

she should know better. you're her advisor, her trainer, her superior. you should make an example of her, call her out and scold her. and it wouldn't be anything new, as you've been known to put other rookie agents in their place for checking you out.

but sawyer—you turn back around to find her dark eyes staring straight ahead, narrowed and focused—there's something different about sawyer.

//

training days are an excruciatingly long, tiring, draining, and grueling process as you push your rookies to the limit, to the brink, to the edge of death.

you're out in the desert, in the scalding heat, for hours and hours—you and all the other advising agents with their rooks—performing drill after drill, critical assessment after assessment.

you're harsh as you yell at them to go faster, and you're mean as you tell them to be better, and you're stern when you blow your whistle and make them do it again, again, _again_ , but you're also sincere, preparing them for the absolute worst, and this scorching desert isn't even close to some of the conditions you've faced on most of your early missions as a junior agent.

while jefferson is the serious one, and marsh is the cocky one, sawyer is the rambunctious one, eager to learn and to try and to do everything first, and so you point at someone else and pick sawyer last.

this doesn't stop her nor dissuade her. she only works harder when you put her down. she only runs swifter when you count faster. she only pushes further when you make her training an absolute, living hell.

she crawls faster. rolls lower. jumps higher. swims smoother. shoots straighter.

by the end of the first week, you’re sure they all hate you—sawyer, especially.

but you're not here to build friendships.

you're building soldiers.

//

you're at a bar— _your_ kinda bar—and sawyer is here too, over by the counter chatting up some attractive redhead with freckles.

you're just finishing up a game of pool with a pretty stranger when you feel those dark eyes staring at you. your senses are super heightened, from years of watching your back and your fellow agents' backs. her gaze is penetrating, causing a tickle on the round of your cheek.

you turn your head, and you catch her eye. she's suddenly closer than you thought, but you blame it on the loud music, making it nearly impossible to trace her footsteps.

“what?" you say, perhaps a bit too harshly, but there's a facade you need to keep up, at least until she climbs the ranks and graduates from rookie status. "do i have something on my face?”

sawyer doesn't look away, despite the ice in your eyes. “you're a very attractive person," she says, out of nowhere, and you find yourself looking around to make sure no one else heard, but you're the only two standing by the pool table now.

usually, you'd reprimand her about the unprofessional quality of that statement, but you're both off shift and it was a nice thing for her to say, and so you take the compliment for what it is with a quiet, “thank you.”

you pick up your stick to chalk the tip when sawyer says, “when first recruited, supergirl never said how attractive you were.”

you look over your shoulder, and you narrow your eyes in confusion, until it hits you that she's using your little sister in her pickup line.

you scoff. "well, maybe she doesn’t think i’m attractive.”

“i don’t think it’s a matter of opinion," sawyer offers, shrugging a shoulder as she rounds on you. "empirically, you _are_ attractive.”

you frown and take a step back. “supergirl is my co-worker," and never mind your _sister_.

“so?”

“as are _you_ ," you say, hoping those words get your point across—that this is entirely inappropriate, considering you're her rookie advisor.

her trainer.

her _superior_.

but clearly sawyer doesn't get the message. “so?” she says again, channeling that rule-breaking persona you recall from three years back.

“so..." you continue, standing up straighter to showcase your dominance, "both of us here makes this a professional outing...and you're coming onto me."

finally, sawyer seems to catch herself. her eyes widen, just a tad, but the pink in her cheeks is prominent. “no i wasn’t. what?" she sputters, rolling her eyes as she sways back on her heels and away from you. "can't a lesbian say another lesbian is attractive without it being a come-on?"

you roll your eyes and then round the table for a better shot, but you don't respond, and so sawyer sighs under her breath and then follows after you.

"alright, alright, let’s just say, just for the sake of argument, that it _was_ a come-on," she says, wincing slightly in what you read as mortification. "what do you want me to do about it? i take it back, okay? i take it back.”

you shoot your shot and pocket two solids in the corner hole. “you can’t take it back.”

“why not?”

“because it’s already out there."

“oh jeez," sawyer raises her hands and waves them around. "what are we supposed to do? call the cops? _it's already out there!_ ”

your blank stare slips as you crack a small smile against your will. she's amusing, you have to admit, but she's also _a lot_ , and you're already thinking of ways to have j'onn reassign her to someone else.

"just let it lie, okay?”

“great. let it lie. that's my policy," she singsongs, leaning over the table to line up her stick to the cue. "that's what i always say, let it lie." you're both silent—you in concentration, her in contemplation—but it's not long before sawyer adds, "wanna spend the night at a motel? see what i did? i didn’t let it lie.”

your jaw clenches. “sawyer.”

she leans up, those dark eyes of hers gleaming under the low chandelier hovering over the pool table. “i said i wouldn’t, and i didn’t.”

“sawyer.”

“i went the other way.”

“ _maggie_.”

her charming smile falters, but she does her best to cover up the slip. “what?”

you look her in her eye so you know that _she_ knows how much you mean your next words: “we are just going to be _friends_ ," you tell her, nodding and waiting for her to nod along with you, "okay?”

friends is all you can offer to her, for now, because even that’s crossing a line that j'onn wouldn't be happy about, but sawyer's eager at best and unrelenting at worst, so you figure it's the easiest way to get her off your back. 

she looks at you for a long moment, but eventually, she nods, with this goofy look on her face that says she hears you but that she's definitely _not_ going to listen.

"great. _friends_ ," she drawls, trying the word out on her tongue. "it's the best thing..."

//

it's only been less than twenty minutes, you're sure, when a shadow hovers over you, and you pull your bottle of beer away from your mouth to peer up. “you realize, of course, that we can never be friends," sawyer says, arms crossed, back straight, eyes narrowed.

you don't want to encourage any of this behavior as it's strictly against policy and all types of protocol at the deo to develop complex relationships that aren't professional, but you're admittedly curious, and sawyer's still standing there, waiting, and so you ask, “why not?”

“what i’m saying is...and this is not a come-on in any way, shape, or form," she adds, sitting down on your side of the booth and then sliding over, "is that two lesbians can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”

it's the dumbest thing you've ever heard anyone say, ever. “that's not true," you argue, trying your best to ignore how close she suddenly is, how good she smells. "i have a number of gay friends, and there’s no sex involved.”

“no you don’t," she counters.

you're taken aback. “yes i do.”

“no you don’t.”

“yes i do.”

“you only _think_ you do," she says.

you can't help it; you laugh because she's really giving you no other choice here. “you're saying i'm having sex with these women without my knowledge?”

“no," sawyer drawls, as if that was the most ridiculous assumption made tonight. which it wasn't. not by a long shot. "what i'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.”

you sputter, “they do _not_.”

“do too.”

“do not.”

“do too.”

“how do you know?” you ask, beginning to tire of this back and forth charade of hers.

“because no lesbian can be friends with another lesbian she finds attractive," sawyer explains, shrugging a shoulder. "she always wants to have sex with her.”

you scoff, because her logic is so skewed, and you think she knows that it's skewed. it's skewed on purpose. she's trying to get a rise out of you, but you are nobody's dummy, and so you challenge her right back. 

"so...you’re saying we can be friends with a lesbian we find  _un_ attractive.”

“no." sawyer rests her arm over the back of the booth, right behind your head. "we pretty much wanna nail ‘em too.”

you laugh, despite yourself; she's cute, charismatic, entertaining. everything she shouldn't be. “what if we don’t want to have sex with you?”

“doesn’t matter," she says, "because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story.”

you like how she just ends it right when you know she's running out of tangible arguments. no matter—she may have won the battle, but you always win the war. you're older. smarter. swifter. more clever. and certainly more intuitive.

“well, i guess we’re not going to be friends then.”

once again, that charming smile falters, and then sawyer gets all quiet. it's only been five seconds, and it's already the least she's spoken all night.

“guess not," she murmurs, eventually, her voice super low and uncertain.

“that's too bad, agent sawyer," you drawl, hiding a tiny smile at the sound of sawyer's disappointment, because it's always amusing to you when the player ends up playing herself, "you're the only person i can tolerate in national city besides my sister.”

and with that, you knock back the rest of your beer and then scoot out of the booth on the other open side.

and you don't look behind you, despite the tickle on the back of your neck that tells you sawyer’s still watching.


End file.
